A Culture of Conspiracy

It is well known that some Americans are obsessed with conspiracies. Films, best-selling books, and television shows talk about plots by the Illuminati or sightings of black helicopters. But American society has changed dramatically since A Culture of Conspiracy was first published in 2001. In this revised and expanded edition, leading expert Michael Barkun delves deeper into America's conspiracy subculture, exploring the rise of 9/11 conspiracy theories, the "birther" controversy surrounding Barack Obama's American citizenship, and how the conspiracy landscape has changed with the rise of the Internet and other new media. Unraveling the extraordinary genealogies and permutations of these increasingly widespread conspiracies, Barkun shows how the web of urban legends has spread among subcultures on the Internet and through mass media, how a new style of conspiracy thinking has recently arisen, and how this phenomenon relates to larger changes in American culture. By looking closely at the manifestations of these ideas in a wide range of literature and source material, Barkun finds that America is in the throes of an unrivaled period of millenarian activity and underscores the importance of understanding why this phenomenon is permeating segments of mainstream American culture. Book jacket.